Batman’s new costume might be made of guns because of Kevin Smith

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Director Matt Reeves’ reveal of Robert Pattinson in a new batsuit signals that the beginning of principal photography for Warner Bros.’ The Batman can’t be far away, but it didn’t give many hints about the movie otherwise. Except that the symbol on Batman’s chest looks a lot like pieces of a gun — which may mean The Batman is taking a page from Kevin Smith.

In 2018, Smith — director, actor, and huge nerd — penned a short story in Detective Comics #1000, in honor of Batman’s 80th anniversary. Illustrated by DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee himself, the comic saw a disguised Bruce Wayne visiting a blackmarket supervillain prop shop in order to recover the gun that was used to kill his parents. The scene is interspersed with panels of Batman battling his rogues’ gallery, and getting shot, stabbed, bashed, or burned right in the bat-symbol every time.

At the end, the story reveals that Bruce took the gun back to the batcave and melted it down into a chestplate.

“The metal that broke my heart as a child?” Bruce’s narration concludes, “That same metal will protect my heart as a man. And that is justice.”

Some fans think that that’s exactly what we saw in the short clip of Pattinson’s Batman costume, including Kevin Smith himself.

The figure on his chest does look like two symmetrical pieces of military hardware. When we quizzed our own military game expert, Charlie Hall, on the anatomy of those pieces, he acknowledged that it could be the grip of a gun, split in half, possibly an assault rifle receiver. But what appears to be a belt clip on the central bases made him skeptical.

It’s possible the symbol is something else entirely — like two batarangs, folded and ready for use, complete with a belt clip for alternative storage. We’ll just have to wait for more info from the set of The Batman, which will hit theaters on June 25, 2021.